Lost Episode 7 Analysis: It's Back, Baby

***Spoilers Ahead***
If you haven't yet watched Wednesday night's mid-season premiere, please visit ABC.com to do so before proceeding.

Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell), a woman with a lot on her mind. (Photo courtesy ABC)

Yesterday in the comment section of the look-ahead post here in Celebritology, reader Janie used the term "nerdgasm" to describe the frenzied next-day discussions of "Lost" in her office each week. Thank you, Janie, for giving our bliss a name. Let the nerdgasm begin.

I was skeptical going into last night's show. After three long months to stew over a mediocre fall season, I didn't have high hopes for the return. After all, the six fall shows had only served to dilute the plot, drop vital threads and kill off one of my favorite characters (Mr. Eko). Then I made the mistake of watching the hour-long infomercial preamble at 9 p.m. Hosted by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (of which we were reminded every time we came back from commercial break), the special bore an unctuous resemblance to a timeshare video sales brochure, with the two producers pitching us hard to invest in their humble little show.

Then, dammit, they did it. And all it took was a glimpse of creepy Ethan (played by Tom Cruise cousin William Mapother) in Juliet's flashback and I was hooked. Not even a minute later, I was unwillingly giving Lindelof and Cuse props for casting an uncredited Robin Weigert ("Deadwood's" Calamity Jane) as Juliet's sickly sister.

Most Interesting Revelation: In Juliet's flashback, we meet her jerk of an ex-husband who seems to have some kind of hold over her, which he's using to exploit her talent as a fertility researcher. (Oh, and if he looked familiar, it's because actor Zeljko Ivanek is also an HBO alum -- he played the governor on prison drama "Oz.") I digress, though. The revelation is that the Others -- in the form of a company called Mittelos Bioscience (for which a currently non-functioning Web site exists and there is some Internet static about "Mittelos" being an anagram for "Lost time", compounded by the producers' revelation that the episode contained a significant anagram) -- reveal themselves to Juliet and leave us with the distinct impression that they are able to come and go at will from the Losties' island. That impression is furthered by Ben's promise to Juliet that she can leave the island if she convinces Jack to finish the operation on his spine.

Biggest Bombshell: Ben is Alex's father? No way. We've been led to believe that Alex is the long-lost daughter of nutty French loner Rousseau, who continues to search the main island for her girl. And when Rousseau held Sayid captive in season one, she told him how she came to the island with her husband, Robert, who she killed along with the rest of her companions after they became infected with some kind of virus. She then said she gave birth, but the newborn was stolen by the Others. Leaving us to conclude that either Rousseau is lying/delusional and was actually some kind of Others fertility experiment or that Benry is lying and has merely told Alex that he is her father to avoid getting into the messy story of her dead dad and Rambo-esque mother.

Interesting Development: Although we didn't get to see Locke, Hurley, Desmond or any of the other Losties back on the main island in last night's episode, we did get to see Sawyer and Kate escape the island with Other teen Karl (who was found being subjected to some kind of "Clockwork Orange"-esque torture courtesy of Ben). I'm hoping this sets up Karl as a valuable turncoat/source of information about his former "family." Is he, like Alex, a child of the island and is it merely a coincidence that he looks like Nicole Richie ex DJ AM?

Stumpers: In the one-hour infomercial preamble, Lindelof described the second island as being much like Alcatraz, two miles off the shore of the main island. And we can clearly see the main island looming in the distance when Sawyer and Kate start paddling away. Why is it that none of the Losties back on the main island have ever spotted this second island? Wouldn't Sayid, Jin and Sun have seen it when circumnavigating the island? Is there some significance to Juliet's proclamation that she's been on the island for three years, two months and 28 days or is she just a little obsessive about calendaring?

Another flashback question to consider involves Juliet's sister. Were the fertility treatments administered to her the cause of her illness or was Juliet actually trying to impregnate a woman who was already seriously ill? From the telltale headscarf, she had every appearance of a person in the midst of chemotherapy or radiation treatment. And, assuming three years have passed since the flashback, is there a baby somewhere or was Juliet transported to the island before her sister had a chance to carry to term?

Maybe we'll learn more in episode 11, when we will apparently find out what the Others' connection is to the Dharma Initiative.

Annoyances: I love me some Sawyer, but even I was ready to smack him last night after his 14th or 15th use of a snappy nickname -- the overused "Freckles" for Kate, "Underdog" for Alex and "Cheech" for Karl, among others. Tom (the Other who kept asking gee-whiz questions of Jack in the operating room) is possibly the worst actor on the show or functioning as an in-show guide for new viewers, in much the same way that the exasperating Nikki and Paulo joined the Losties on the main island last fall.

Best Performance of the Night: Hands down, Michael Emerson's Benry managed to give the command performance while strapped face-down to an operating table. His anesthetized mastery of the room ("one gentleman to another") was incredibly creepy and effective.

What did you think of last night's episode? What did I miss? Let's keep this going in comments and in today's 2 p.m. ET live discussion.

Next Week on "Lost":Flashes Before Your Eyes: A suspicious and determined Hurley enlists Charlie to help him wrangle the truth out of Desmond, who has been acting strangely ever since the implosion of the hatch.

I thought the deal with Juliet's sister was that she had cancer (I assumed uterine or something) and Juliet had given her magic injections which allowed a steril woman to have a baby. Just like the male field mouse that the people from "portland" were talking about. Maybe I was connecting imaginary dots.

Doesn't anyone remember that it was Rousseau who captured Henry Gale/Ben in her net before the Losties held him hostage? I would think that if he were actually Alex's father, Rousseau would have recognized him then, unless she is somehow still involved with them or has become so delusional she didn't recognize him. Furthermore, the Others were very adamant about the Losties not venturing to the North side of the island. By keeping them afraid of that side, it may have prevented them from seeing the Alcatraz island. Just a thought.

The Mittelos website is not affiliated with the show. It went active before the episode aired as a countdown to Wednesday. It's registered through GoDaddy and is NOT official. It's a fan-created site from someone who saw the episode in advance.

The producers were not acting like themselves during the clip show before the episode. They aren't really pompous asses. Listen to their podcasts, they're really funny and loose guys, but I don't think the network would let them do their usual brand of humor on national TV.

I admit, I have never seen the show until last night. I watched the 9pm recap show, and while the producers were self-absorbed, I have to admit, they did a good job of hooking me in to watch the 10pm show. It helped me to understand what in the world was going on with everyone. Very helpful for someone who has never seen the show before and did a good job of snookering me in.

During the summer they did that "Lost Experience" game online with bits of video being released. One of the things revealed was that one Thomas Mittelwerk was a founder of Hanso and even staged a company takeover (hostile to the point of kidnapping Hanso).

It doesn't seem like a coincidence that Mittelos and Mittelwerk are such similar names. And it is a little worrysome because Mittelwerk was working on a virus designed to have a 30% fatality rate.

The bus coming out of nowhere was a huge shock. It actually made me jump. When Juliet was going to give her sister the injection and she saw Ethan (who is creepy in his own right) where were they? That didn't look like a clinic, it actually mirrored the place the others stay to me.

I think the injections were to get her sister preggers but the question is. Who's the daddy? And. Will Sawyer suffer some of the effects of the brain jacking Kent experienced? Because he watched the screen and seemed engrossed.

Great show, as always. I'm glad that our heroes were finally able to win a skirmish against the Others - I was really getting tired of seeing them get outsmarted every time!

There is one answer to the question of the bus accident which doesn't involve anything mystical. It's that the Mittelos guys arranged the accident to free Juliet from the hold her husband has on her, so that they can convince her to work for them, and to demonstrate their power to her. There could always be another explanation which is less reality-based, but we might as well start with the simplest explanation for now.

This show gave us yet another reminder to keep our eyes on the children. They are the key to the mystery at the heart of this show, and they will wield immense power, for good or evil...

Just a note, Juliette's ex-husband's name was Edmund Burke. You can see his full name briefly on his name placard on his desk. Edmund Burke, like, John Locke, was an 18th century British philosopher. I'm not sure what the significance to the show could be, but it's a fun fact.

maybe the pre-show would have been better if hosted by some of the actors, although anyone who remembers the west wing ego extravaganza after 9/11 knows how bad that can be. but the producers were awkward and way too pleased with themselves.

Apparently Liz enjoyed this comeback episode much more than I did. Didn't watch the pre-show, but I'll catch it on TiVo. I found the reveals underwhelming. I was looking for answers to past questions, not more convolutions to ponder. If this was supposed to be the show that would win back viewers after a three-month hiatus, it seems to have missed the mark.

And I'm a die-hard sci-fi/fantasy fan. Even held out hope for Star Trek Enterprise. Last night was far from a deal-closer.

At least there was one decent reveal in that we saw that the Others didn't necessarily grow up on the island.
I thought that the writers just gave a huge middle finger to the audience with the one guy about to explain to Jack why they wouldn't leave the islands after they crashed, but then having the medical emergency interupt. They were basically saying that they could care less about revealing anything to the viewers of the show.
All in all, not terrible, but not really all that good either.

About the Other's ability to leave the island...
I agree Liz that the flashback scenes seemed to make it clear that the Others could come and go (unless Ethan had not made it there yet), but I don't think that holds true any longer. While operating Jack asked Tom why they went through the trouble to get him (Jack) to operate on Ben if they could have just taken him to any hospital in the world. Tom begins to answer saying something like, "ever since the sky turned purple...." Indicating that since the Hatch im/explosion something has changed in their ability to get off the island. I wonder if this affects the supply drops and their communications with the "outside world" too?

I agree -- pre-show was lame. But I kept it on, muted, and noticed something interesting. During the Hurley flashback, they showed his McMansion on fire. The color and the way the smoke moved mimicked the black smoke on the island. Did anyone else see this?

Yet another conspiracy-type thing to consider: Juliet said she had been on the island for 3 years, 2 months, and 28 days. We found out earlier that the Losties crashed on the island in October 2004 - now, we know that they've been on the island for almost 2 months, putting the timeframe in or around early December 2004. That means Juliet left civilization somewhere around 9/11......

Am I reading too much into it? Probably. But it does seem kinda cool.

Also, who is Karl? Who's his father? How did Sawyer know who Karl was (when Alex told Sawyer/Kate that they had to rescue her boyfriend before they could leave on Alex's boat)??

And yes, I loved Juliet's ex-husband's untimely demise at the windshield of the #28 cross-town bus. The producers sure know how to introduce twists/turns....

I thought this was a great episode - the best of the 3rd season by far. There was action, and the plot moved forward, and the flashbacks were actually valuable. I think Rousseau (another philosopher- what's with that?) is definitely Alex's mother, but since Alex was taken as a baby, it would be easy enough for Henry to raise her as his own. Juliet wouldn't know, since she had only been there three years.
One minor thing that bothers me:
I feel like the Others have been completely reimagined over this season.
For example, through the first two seasons, the Others had an almost supernatural ability. They could appear out of nowhere, fight with great strength, walk through the woods without making a sound. As we get to know them as just ordinary people - people who even have their own flashbacks - I miss that creepiness.

I second the motion by the skirmish person: Why can't anybody on this show hit a target/person at 50 feet? They even miss with rifles - both sides. Except for Yunjin who got the bad guys wife in the sailboat at about five paces - and she wasn't shooting back. It drains credibility.

I can't recall, but did they actually identify Ben/Henry as Alex's father? I recall Juliet telling her father would never let them go if she went with the Lost crew, but I didn't think they actually said he was her father.

I'm of the opinion that there's one more "big" charachter that we haven't met yet who will turn out to be Alex's father. Or whoever they mention Alex's father as. If it was Ben, they would have said it.

"And, assuming three years have passed since the flashback, is there a baby somewhere or was Juliet transported to the island before her sister had a chance to carry to term?"

Juliet probably never saw the baby delivered. The Milettos guy told her that she would could come back after 5 months, so that she could be there for that, but once she got on the island she's been stuck there.

Re: Gunfire
Have you ever tried to fire a pistol accurately at 15 to 20 yards? It's not as simple as you might think. Moving makes it even more difficult. I guarantee any person who wasn't VERY practiced at shooting while on the run would be hard pressed to hit a human-size target at even 5 yards. Rifles are more accurate at distance but again, only if you're stationary. Actual credibility has been drained by movies and TV shows that make it appear far easier than it is.

Re: British philosophers John Locke, Edmund Burke....Found this about Jack Sheppard(two p's) at wikipedia

Jack Sheppard (4 March 1702 - 16 November 1724) was a notorious English robber, burglar and thief of early 18th century London. Born into a poor family, he was apprenticed as a carpenter but took to theft and burglary in 1723, with little more than a year of his training to complete. He was arrested and imprisoned five times in 1724 but escaped four times, making him a notorious public figure, and wildly popular with the poorer classes.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Sheppard

I don't think Michael will be coming back. I just read somewhere, probably here, that the actor that plays him, Harold Perrineau, is doing another show.

He's co-starring in the CBS pilot Demons. Word is they couldn't come to an agreement on him returning. Which means he thought he could take them for big $$$ & they said, "No Michael can stay gone for a little while longer."

The bus thing shocked my husband and I for a second, and then we nearly fell off the couch laughing.

That was fabulous.

I just want to know what happened to Juliet to turn her from "the mess" she claimed to be in the flashbacks into the Machiavellian character she is now. Or is her love for her sister just driving her on?

As for Alex being Ben's daughter:

When Kate, Sawyer and Alex showed up to rescue Alex, the guard said her father didn't want her there. She told the guard to ask her father, and the guard asked Danny to get Ben.

And by the way - who's to say that Ben didn't adopt Alex? "Father" doesn't necessarily mean "biological father". If Alex isn't Rousseau's daughter, then the producers did a heckuva job casting a young woman who looks a lot like and sounds a little like the woman who plays Rousseau.

Also - they seem very eager to keep Alex off the main island...maybe so she doesn't run into Rousseau?

While Juliet didn't explicitly say that Ben was her father, she did say Alex needed to be there when he woke up. Maybe it's one of the million little redirections on this show, but on top of the earlier exchange, it is not out of the question to say that Juliet was referring to Ben waking up from surgery, as opposed to someone unknown waking up from a nap.

If you can't see the mittelosbioscience.org page, KEEP TRYING! I tried entering in .com and .edu just in case it had been typed in wrong but got nowhere. Then I hit the Back button in my browser a few times and it popped up. There's bios on Juliette and Ethan and a map of the 3 islands.

THEN there is a crazy, freaky email you get when you log in as Juliette that is a video of her niece that gets interrupted by a bunch of static and a voice talking about the Hanso project and how Juliette is going to die. It's hard to make out but I think that was the gist. SO CREEPY! Whew! It gave me the chills!

(sorry if this was spoilers or whatever but for those who can't get it to come up, i had to share!!)

>The website works intermitently. Once you
>get there, www.mittelosbioscience.org

>Go to the Projects Page

>login: jburke
>pw: rachel.

>Here's the vid you need to see if the web
>page isn't working:
>http://one.revver.com/watch/165062/flv/affiliate/62101

>And if you CAN get the link to >work.......3RD ISLAND HELLO?!?!WTF?!?

>Posted by: Bored @ work | February 8,
>2007 11:15 AM

Couldn't get the mittelosbioscience page --however, thanks for posting the URL for the video.

WEIRD. Curiouser and Curiouser, my friends. Definitely -- it's getting more than a bit "The Prisoner" and "X-Files": "...in control for a hundred years.." "...they're killing us..." "...slave trade but not to sell..."

Yikes. Just when you think you have a handle on some corner of the mystery...

Kate's having a baby...you really think with a plot line that revolves around fertility and genetics that the kate/Sawyer romp WON'T end up resulting in a baby?

Jack...ask a question, dammit. Like "Now that I have some control of the situation, where the hell are we?"

Shoot out...The other was able to shoot the "walkie" (drives me nuts when they call it that) right out of Kate's (or was it Sawyer's) hand. Impressive. But at least they had Sawyer empty his clip so that was realistic. Kind of.

Juliet's husband...Anyone remember him as Ed Danvers, the district attorney in Homicide? Great show.

Jack realized at the end of the show that Juliet was leaving and he was her replacement. They need a doctor - she wants to leave - Jack is it.

As for Juliet's ex-husband getting hit by the bus, is it the same phenomenon as Desmond being able to tell the future to Hurley about Lott making a speach. There is more at play then fertility in their experiments.

I have to agree with the earlier poster re: the writers/producers. They are actually hilarious and poke fun at themselves, check out their podcasts at abc.com.

I thought last night's episode was GREAT, and I loved the Jules flashbacks, even though I hate her character. I felt a teensy bit more sympathetic towards her after seeing her back story. I hope she and Jack don't end up together.

Last note, PLEASE, PLEASE if you don't like Lost, then stop watching and posting to Lost discussions!! And geez, if you get all the answers, why would you continue watching? How boring would that be? Sheesh, hate all the complainers!! Just watch ESPN recaps already and stop whining and complaining and spoiling the fun of the rest of us! :-)

I just got into the www.mittelosbioscience.org website -- fascinating exec bios and other info (life expectancy...or Re-Animation?) and logged into Projects -- a third island, the Control Island. What the f*k!

Am I the only one who could pretty much care less about all these new-ish characters? I was so ready for some Hurley and Said, even Charlie. And I get a night full of Juliet! I was so bored watching last night's show I fell asleep. I just didn't find it compelling at all and I was really looking forward to it. That said, I'll be back next week even though it's now past my bedtime.

Non-Ethan Mittelos exec = Don't know his name off the top of my head, but he was the Cuban guy on "Suddenly Susan."

The non Ethan guy was on Suddenly Susan with Brooke Shields and Judd Nelson, it was supposed to be a comedy on NBC. He played Miguel (I think that was his name), the photographer . I can't place his real name at the moment.

chasmosaur - I thought of surgeon vs researcher problem as well, but I have a feeling that was Ben's deal when he (supposedly) agreed to let Juliet go. It was the unfamiliarity of the other "other" in the surgery room with Juliet vs. Jack's skills as well - he didn't realize Juliet couldn't sew up Ben - maybe I am reading too much into this.

One more observation: The "other" that get shot at the end - he is the jock boyfriend of the main character of the 80's cult classic "Valley Girl." It bothered me the whole show - and I finally figured it out.

To dre: thanks. His name is Nestor Carbonell, and he's a character actor. Which explains the general familiarity factor. This does appear to be his first appearance on Lost, unless, of course, someone comes up with something from a Flashback ;)

cmac:
I assumed Juliet's husband getting hit by a bus was arranged by the guys trying to hire her, not any kind of psychic premonition. If they add more than one psychic character (to whom it happened by accident), I'm done with this crapfest.

Re ladybugolo:
Lady was right about communications not working since the hatch explosion. It in the ep. the Cost of Living, where Sawyer gets knocked out by Ben and Co. and they tell him he has that explosive pace maker thing. And Coleen, Denny's wife dies from the gunshot wound delivered be Sun. Sawyer comes-to on the table and you hear Tom tell Ben that "ever since the sky turned purple we're blind, our comm's are all down and i can't get them back up again and if you haven't noticed coleen in critical condition..."

Carl was the young man in the other zoo-like cage when Sawyer awoke in this season's episode one. He was then taken away to parts unknown (maybe to that wild "clockwork orange" room.) Kate was then placed in that cage.

Also, on Ben being Alex's dad: when they pull the "Wookie Prisoner Trick" (anyone else get a laugh out of the cell number after that reference?), Alex tells the guard to ask her dad for confirmation, and the guard radios to the base asking for Ben.

Liz, you missed another HBO alum. Kim Dickens (who plays the chick who hooks up with Sawyer in the con game flashbacks) was also on Deadwood. She played a prostitute on the show. So far it looks like the entire cast of Deadwood is going to show up at the rate they are going! Frankly, I could see Timothy Olyphant as a really good, really creepy Other. Timothy Olyphant and Josh Holloway....mmmm, that would be nice. :)
Loved last nights episode, cant wait for next week!

I agree about the pre-show sounding like an infomercial. But the show really paid off. I'm freaked out by what they were doing to that kid. And I don't trust Juliet at all. Got a bad feeling about that one.

The Clockwork Orange treatment was the first reminder in a while that they are really bad. This season has been humanizing the Others, and I'm glad to see that they are still real bad guys, counter to their claims. I'm convinced that we're meant to take a lot away from the stuff that was flashing on that screen. But they're very easily overcome - we've seen nothing like the physical traits they seemed to have earlier. Maybe because they're not on the island?

Lost Oversite?
Someone please help here. On the season 3 opener, when we see the others in camp reading books and the plane crashes, at the end of the sequence, we see something interesting. The camera pans out from the Other's camp, and we SEE the plane burning in the distance on the SAME island, not on a different island. What does this mean? Is there a nice bungalo camp on the Lostie's island and the Others fled back to the lab?

Do you think it's possible that Juliette's flashbacks were actually distorted by the island/her extended time on the island? How was she walking down that oh-so-familiar dark and dank hallway, passing Ethan, and then opening a door into a candlelit room in Miami? And what is she doing running into her ex-husband in the clinic that looks suspiciously like the one Claire ransacked in season 2(?)? Did they just look very similar? Is she losing it? Or am I?

i am completely over LOST. i thought i was, but then i figured i'd give this mid-season premiere a shot, but no--the thrill is gone. i absolutely do not care what happens to the characters on that show, and when you start feeling that way you know it's time to just sip your whiskey, read your book, and turn off the light. it was fun while it lasted, but i am LOST no more. hallelujah.

Thanks for the website, bored at work...who I really don't think is bored at work or even working for that matter. You know too much.

The mysterious, questionable third island on the website claims to be the sight of Casimir Studies. As always, Wikipedia provided an answer (under Analogies for those w/o degrees in physics): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect

re: Walt's photo on the milk jug
This is one of the "easter eggs" the producers referred to. Meaning: little nuggets of hidden information that only dedicated (or TiVo SlowAdvance Button addicts) will notice. FYI: Easter Eggs were traditionally used on websites to give people "in the know" secret content or access to it. I think my favorite easter egg is the japanese news broadcast playing on the TV in the background while Jin is visiting on assignment from Sun's father -- it's Hurley!!

Re: Juliet passing Ethan in the hallway-- I don't think they had met yet. They said hi, but it didn't sound like they knew each other. Ethan came out of a room, though I doubt it was the same room Juliet's sister was in because Juliet would have noticed. Then later, after Juliet's husband dies, Juliet asks Ethan "Have we met?" Also remember that the two Mittelos researchers knew that Juliet's sister was pregnant, but she didn't tell them. I think the scene where Juliet passed Ethan in the hallway was supposed to imply that Ethan had been spying on the sister.

Thanks bored@work for the website info. That video is creepy. If you put the mouse on Richard Alpert's picture under exec bios it says Alpert Hofmann. I googled Alpert Hofmann and found out he did research on LSD with another man named Dr. Richard Alpert. Some of the stories in his project are interesting. I only glanced quickly, but one talks about clouds and them taking shape, etc, maybe that's where they got the smoke monster from, LSD trips.
Great episode after much too long a break.

If the guy from Mittelos was named Richard Alpert, he shares his moniker with Timothy Leary's old partner from the days of free love and LSD:

Dr. Richard Alpert (born April 5, 1931), also known as Baba Ram Dass (à¤¬à¤¾à¤¬à¤¾ à¤°à¤¾à¤® à¤¦à¤¾à¤¸), is a contemporary spiritual teacher who wrote the 1971 bestseller Be Here Now. He is well-known for his association with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s, both having been dismissed from their professorships for experiments on the effects of psychedelic drugs on human subjects. He is also known for his travels to India and his association with the Hindu guru, Neem Karoli Baba.

OK, I think I can put forth a sane simple solution about this whole Alex/Henry/Rousseau "mystery" - Remember, the Producers told us that the show is, to paraphrase, is about secrets we keep from each other. We know from the show that Alex was taken from Rousseau shortly after she was born. Being an infant, Alex probably has no memories of Rousseau. Given that Ben is a master of deception, it doesn't take a leap of logic to figure out that he raised Alex as his own child and that Alex thinks of Ben as her Father.

BTW, I thought the pre-show was much better with Damon and Carlton than the past pre-shows with that oh-so ominous voice over: "imagine yourself in a planewreck with strangers. How would you survive? Who would you trust?" Gak!!!!

From this map it seems evident that there IS another island, and my guess is that there is another group of Others there, maybe the higher leaders which have been referred to once or twice. Also might be where eye-patch guy is located.

From the email and the video on the website, which is sent from Rachel to Julliette, we can gather that her sister did survive and has raised a daughter, who appears to be 2-3 years old. Her sister says in the email that she understands that Julliette can not respond, so Julliette must have had some contact with Rachel after she arrived on the islands.

On another note, is anyone else pissed that the producers seem to have neglected the major twist at the end of season 2, where Desmond's girlfriend and her team of researchers "find" something (presumably when the hatch creates an electromagnetic pulse)?

Many of the sublymonal images used on carl were either the same ones or similar to sublymonal images used in sprite ads this past summer. There was a tie in between lost and sprite, so don't be so suprised by this room we saw last night

I'm not angry that the producers have neglected the Penny's friends in the Arctic subplot thus far. Remember, even though the season 2 finale (with that reveal) aired something like 9 months ago, there have only been 7 episodes since then, with perhaps only two weeks of tv time passing over those episodes. That doesn't leave a lot of time to analyze whatever the Brazilain dudes discovered and equip and mount an exbidition to save Desmond. I think they'll pick that storyline up in a little while longer ...

"Lost" was created by JJ Abrams, who also created "Felicity." There was an episode of Felicity where a new character stepped out into the street and very suddenly got hit by a bus.

As soon as I heard Juliet mention "hit by a bus" I realized that this was like the old saying about holding a gun up in the first act of a play--if you introduce it in act one, you have to use it by act three. So I knew that her husband was going to get hit by a bus.

That said, it was still a shock when it happened. A shock, but not a surprise...

During the brainwashing scene with Karl, if the scene is played backwards, a woman is saying "only fools are enslaved by time and space". I think this is the other Easter egg, not Walt on the milk carton. Here's the website where you can watch it: http://losteastereggs.blogspot.com/2007/02/only-fools-are-enslaved-by-time-and.html
Can't take credit for it, but a friend told me about it. CREEPY!!

Also, Ben said earlier this season (episode 3) that he's "lived on this island all my life". Was he a fertility experiment? Did they need Juliet to replace someone since she's the fertility expert? Remember when he showed Jack newsclips from back home? Just before that, he said "your fellow Americans re-elected George W. Bush, Christopher Reeve died, Boston Red Sox won the World Series...". Also, since Juliet "successfully impregnated a male field mouse"...maybe the Others want Juliet to experiment on other animals (polar bears on island). Ben doesn't consider himself an "American"?

How's that for a monkey wrench?

Also in episode 3, so the plane crashed on 9/22/04 and the "episode" was on 11/29/04. Just wanted to share that in case anyone was trying to figure out the whole time and space thing.

Another thing, if you go to the mittelos.org, they'll show an email from Juliet to her sister Rachel, understanding that she can't email back. And a map of 3 (!) islands. Maybe the 3rd island is where Walt and Michael ended up?

One last thing....in the email from Rachel to Juliet, there's the link to that creepy video. After watching it again (it's pretty garbled), it's saying something about...juliet it's me, been trying to contact you for years, doing these experiments on humans for years, the hanso foundation (some other foundation), mittelos bioscience, they're all the same, for a over a century they've been controlling us, slaves in the 1800's, they're not helping, they've been killing us, it's not about experimenting on humans but...

The bus scene was reminesent of the movie Final Destination, where people who get off a doomed plane before it takes off and blows up due to a premonition, are subsequently killed as fate, which missed them the first time, hunts them down and kills them one by one. A great movie.

One scene in Final Destination is EXACTLY like the bus scene that kills Juliet's husband. A girl is talking to her friends and steps out into the street, backwards, and is hit by a bus moving very fast. Add to that the incorporation of "fate" in the next episode and its all starts to make sense. The bus scene was meant to lead us to the movie Final Destination and how fate ends up winning in the end. Good job writers!